About George Kalantzis

On a leisurely walk by the river Ilisus, just outside the walls of the ancient city, Socrates responds to his persistent interlocutor, "You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they were alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words" (Phaedrus 275d).

I was born and raised by the shadow of the Acropolis, a stone's throw away from the bank of the Ilisus river where Socrates took the young Phaedrus for that famous walk; and though the sounds and smells of the megalopolis have for generations replaced the bucolic descriptions of Plato, the ancient sentiments remain the same: writing and, even more, reading, is a tricky business! Especially as one engages sacred Scripture and the history and theology of the Church. This, most rewarding of endeavors, demands attention, perseverance, and a curious and open mind, to really engage the multifaceted vision of the Painter, the author of the beauty that confronts us.

My research and writing interests focus on this dynamic relationship between the written documents and their interpretation in early Christianity. I pay particular attention to the development of Christological and Trinitarian thought, as well as the interplay of classical Greco-Roman and early Christian philosophical understandings of anthropology and biblical hermeneutics. Whether I study history or theology, first I seek to study the subject within its own historical, theological, and socio-political context so that I may understand it on its own terms; only then do I attempt to interpret it diachronically and explore its impact on theology and the church today.

For the past ten years I have had the opportunity to teach seminary and doctoral students as they were preparing to engage the world and the Church. Together we were challenged to allow ourselves to become agents of change in a world in desperate need of God; to learn how to be, in Stanley Hauerwas' words, "a community of character." My wife, Irene, and I share this goal and vision with our local congregation where we serve in missions, the worship arts programs, and in adult and children’s education.

Essays & Articles

“Passibility, Tentability, and the Divine Οὐσία in the Debate Between Cyril and Nestorius.” Accepted for publication in
Studia Patristica 68 (Leuven: Peeters, 2017).

“Whose Feet are You Washing? Raising Leaders in the Midst of Suffering.” In
A Theology of Japan: Monograph Series 9, edited by Atsuyoshi Fujiwara and Brian Byrd (Saitama: Seigakuin University Press, 2016), 94-100.

“Y a-t-il un lecture évangélique des Pères apostoliques?” To be published in the proceedings of l’Association Francophone Européenne de Théologiens Evangéliques (2016, in French).

“The Reception of Augustine in the Orthodox East.” Frontiers of Philosophy in China. Part of the special volume on Augustine (Spring 2014).

“A Witness to the Nations: Early Christianity and Narratives of Power,” in Kalantzis, George and Gregory W. Lee, eds. Christian Political Witness (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014) 90-111.

“From the Porch to the Cross: Ancient Christian Approaches to Spiritual Formation,” in Jeffrey P. Greenman and George Kalantzis, eds. Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2010) 63-81.

“Single Subjectivity and the Prosopic Union in Cyril of Alexandria and Theodore of Mopsuestia,” in StudiaPatristica15 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010) 44-49.

“Introduction,” in George Kalantzis and Thomas F. Martin, eds. Studies on Patristic Texts and Archaeology: If These Stones Could Speak...Essays in Honor of Dennis Edward Groh. (Lewiston, NY: The EdwinMellen Press, 2009) 1-5.

“Crumbs From the Table: Lazarus, the Eucharist, and the Banquet of the Poor in the Homilies of St. John Chrysostom,” in Mark Husbands and Greenman, Jeffrey P., eds. Ancient Faith for the Church’s Future (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008) 56-168.

“The Sovereignty of God and Divine Transcendence: Two Views from the Early Church,” in Kalantzis, G., and D. Stephen Long, The Sovereignty of God Debate. (Eugene:Cascade Books, 2008) 27-41.

“Creatio ex Terrae: Immortality and the Fall in Theodore, Chrysostom, and Theodoret.” at the 16th International Conference of Patristic Studies, Oxford, England, August 2011.

“Did God Plant a Garden in the Manner of a Farmer? Divine/Human Relationship in Origen” (by invitation of the Christian Theology and the Bible Group) a panel on Patristic Readings of Genesis 1-3. Annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). Atlanta, GA, Nov. 2010.

Co-convened with J. Patout Burns and chaired the session on “The Reception of Paul’s Letter to the Romans” at the 2010 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (May 2010).

Convened and chaired the 2010 Spring Gatehring of The Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies, Evangelicals and the Early Church: Recovery • Reform • Renewal (18–19 March 2010).

“Shall the Twain Ever Meet?” (by invitation) a panel presentation on Teaching Eastern Orthodoxy in the Academy. Annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). New Orleans, Nov. 2009.

Convened the Inaugural lecture of The Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies, given by Robert Louis Wilken, "Going Deeper into the Bible: The Church Fathers as Interpreters” (October 29, 2009).

“Whose Story is it Anyway? Response to Warren Smith’s ‘Ambrose, Paul, and the conversion of the Jews,’” at the North Park Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture, September 24-26, 2009.

Convened and chaired the session on “Texts and Context: Reading Material and Textual Cultures” at the 2009 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (May 2009).

Presented the paper titled, Spirituality and the Mimetic Impulse: Porch, Desert, and Other Unlikely Destinations in the Late Antique Search for the Spirit, during the 18th Annual Wheaton Theology Conference, Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective (April 2009).

Co-Convened with Jeffrey P. Greenman the 18th Annual Wheaton Theology Conference, Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective (18–21 April 2009).

Invited lecture, “The Doctrine of the Trinity.” University of Chicago Faculty Speaker Series, February 2009.

“‘The Voice so Dear to Me’: The Epistle to the Romans in the Antiochene Tradition,” (by invitation) a panel presentation on the reception of Romans in the Greek East. Annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)-Romans Through History and Cultures session. Boston, Nov. 2008.

Led the session Antiochene Interpretation of Scripture at the 15th International Conference of Patristic Studies, Oxford, England (6-11 August 2007).

“Single Subjectivity and the Prosopic Union in Cyril of Alexandria and Theodore of Mopsuestia” at the 15th International Conference of Patristic Studies, Oxford, England (6-11 August 2007)

“Crumbs From the Table: Lazarus, the Eucharist, and the Banquet of the Poor in the Homilies of St. John Chrysostom” at the 2007 Wheaton Ancient Faith for the Church’s Future Conference (12 April 2007).

“The Body/Soul Analogy and the CommunicatioIdiomatum in Theodore and Cyril” at the 2006 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (25 May 2006).

Chaired the session “The Antiochene Tradition II” at the 2006 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (25 May 2006).

Chaired the session on “Cyril of Alexandria” at the 2006 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (26 May 2006).

Chaired the special session on “The Making of Clerical Authority” at the 2006 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (26 May 2006).

“And the Word Became What!? The Hypostatic Union and the Logic of the Incarnation.” Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (26 April 2006).

“Is There Room for Two? Cyril’s Single-Subjectivity and the Prosopic Union.” The Catholic University of America (16 March 2006).

“If the Dead do not Rise…: Memory and the Heroic in Greek and Christian Martyrology.” Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (5 November 2003).

Participant in the workshop on Antiochene Exegesis at the 14th International Patristic Conference, 18-23 August 2003, Oxford, England.

“Theodore of Mopsuestia’s Commentarius in EvangeliumIoannisApostoli: Text and Transmission” at the 2001 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (NAPS).

Chaired the special session “Nicene and non-Nicene Theology of the Fourth Century” at the 2001 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (NAPS).

“Duo Filii and the homo assumptus: The Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia and his Commentary on John” at the 2000 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (NAPS).

“Scripture and Christology in the Greek Fathers and the Significance for Today.” Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Forum on Theology, sponsored by The Department of Systematic Theology (November, 1999).

“A Comparison of the Architectural Elements of the Fifth and Sixth Century Byzantine Churches in the Negev and Constantinople” as part of the Special Archaeology Session titled: “The Negev: A Byzantine Christian Region” at the 1996 General Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (NAPS).

Works in Process (Submitted & in Preparation)

BOOKS UNDER CONTRACT (Submitted & in Preparation)

In Press (scheduled to appear in 2017-2018)

Kalantzis, George and Matthew Levering, eds. On Christian Dying: Witnesses from the Christian Tradition. 2017.

Kalantzis, George. Crumbs From the Table: The Eucharist for the Life of the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. (Under contract. Submission due 2018).

Kalantzis, George. With God on Our Side: The Transformation of Christian Attitudes to War and Military Service in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. (Submission due 2018; in progress).

Kalantzis, George. Of God and Men: Christian Attitudes to War and Military Service in the Middle Ages. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. (Submission due 2020).

“Did God Plant a Garden in the Manner of a Farmer? Divine/Human Relationship in Origen” in preparation for inclusion in Kathryn Greene-McCreight (ed.),
Patristic Readings of Genesis 1-3 (New York and London: T & T Clark/Continuum).

Service as an Outside Reviewer

Peer Reviewer for the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS).

Served as a manuscript peer reviewer for:

The Journal of Early Christian Studies

StudiaPatristica

Catholic University of America Press

Westminster John Knox Press

The Patristic Monograph Series (Catholic University of America Press)

InterVarsity Press

Baker Academic

Sample of Lectures and Presentations to the Church

New Life, New Constitution: Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Libertyville Evangelical Free Church, IL.

The Idolatry of Freedom: Rom 1:18-25. Ridgewood Baptist Church, WI.

A three-week series on Mark Labberton’s, The Dangerous Act of Worship: God’s Call to Justice, at the Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church, IL and at the Libertyville Evangelical Free Church, IL.

Gone Fishing! New Life in John 21. Ridgewood Baptist Church, WI (2 November 2008).

"Being a Christian in the Campaign Season” – A roundtable discussion with Wheaton Professors, Wheaton College.

A three-week series on Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why it Matters What Christians Believe at the Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church, IL.

An eight-week series on How Should We Then Live? at the Libertyville Evangelical Free Church, as part of continuing lay education.

A four week series titled The Life and Message of DietrichBonhoeffer at the Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church, IL.

Presented a lecture on De-Coding the Da Vinci Code at the First Presbyterian Church, Evanston, IL.

Presented a lecture on Denominationalism and the Enlightenment at The Graduate Christian Fellowship at Northwestern University.

Presented a lecture on Modern Evangelicalism at The Community Church of Wilmette.

Presented a lecture on Eastern Orthodoxy at The Community Church of Wilmette.

Taught an eight-week series on Discipleship at the Libertyville Evangelical Free Church, as part of continuing lay education.

Taught an eight-week series on The Sermon on the Mount at the Libertyville Evangelical Free Church, as part of continuing lay education.

An Open Lecture titled, “What are the Dangers of National Religion and Politic?” at the University Chapel Hour, Illinois Wesleyan University.

Taught a ten-week series at the Adult Bible Fellowship, on Grammar of Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology course, at the Evangelical Free Church of Libertyville, as part of continuing lay education.

Presented a lecture on St. John Chrysostom: Pastor, Bishop, Theologian, as part of the forum St. John Chrysostom at St. John Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church, Chicago, IL.

Presented a lecture on Golden-Mouth: The Life and Times of John Chrysostom, as part of the series More than a Mosaic: St. John Chrysostom at St. John Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church, Chicago, IL.

Taught the course The Person of Christ at the Faith Passage, the three-week residential summer academy program for Methodist youth held each year at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Taught a six-week series during the Adult Bible School series, on Turning Points in the History of the Church (C.E 800 - 1700) at the Libertyville Evangelical Free Church, as part of continuing lay education.

Taught a six-week series during the Adult Bible School series, on Turning Points in the History of the Church (C.E 100 - 1000) at the Libertyville Evangelical Free Church, as part of continuing lay education.

Taught an eight-week series at the Adult Bible Fellowship, on Christology at the Evangelical Free Church of Libertyville, as part of continuing lay education.

Taught at the First United Methodist Church, Evanston, Illinois, along with two other colleagues, a ten-week series on The Suffering Messiah: Christological Perspectives from the New Testament, Early Church, and Modern Theology as part of continuing lay education.

Presented a lecture on Christology: Then and Now, at the First Presbyterian Church in Evanston, Illinois.

An Open Lecture titled, The Upside Kingdom, at the University Chapel Hour, Illinois Wesleyan University

Media Appearances

Panelist with Joyce E. Salisbury on Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg, a WGN Radio 720 production, discussing Martyrdom Then and Now (aired 12 July 2004)

Panelist with John Petrakis on Different Drummers, a production of Greater Chicago Broadcast Ministries, discussing The Passion of the Christ, by Mel Gibson (aired by CBS, 27 March 2004)